CHAPTER VI 



THE QUESTION OF NOMENCLATURE 



IF we take up a book or a paper dealing with mathe- 

 matics (especially analysis) printed in a language, such as 

 Japanese, which is quite unintelligible to us, we shall, 

 nevertheless, soon succeed in finding out what it is about 

 and often in understanding its main contents. The reason 

 of this is, of course, that the mathematical formulas consist 

 of symbols which are intelligible to us because they are used 

 in the same manner by all civilised nations. The same thing 

 holds good in physics, and especially in chemistry ; chemical 

 formulae contain at the present day such detailed information 

 concerning the relationships of the substances symbolised, 

 that one might conceive the possibility of writing a chemical 

 paper with formulas alone. 



In the case of the descriptive natural sciences, the Latin 

 names of the genera and species, the Latin nomenclature of 

 anatomy and other similar groups, form a common inter- 

 national possession. Physiology, biology, sociology, as well 

 as history and ancient philology, possess as yet, however, no 

 system of internationally intelligible terms. In modern 

 philology (phonetics) practical endeavours have already been 

 made to construct an international system of sound symbols. 

 All these sciences possess naturally the designation of 

 numbers by means of numerals which have a perfectly 

 international character. Since in mathematics not only 

 the quantities, but also the operations, are denoted by 

 universally understood symbols, it is already possible, with 

 comparatively few additions, to express long trains of 



